


Me Without You

by thinkpink20



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:46:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkpink20/pseuds/thinkpink20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John tries to cut every part of Sherlock out of his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Me Without You

The world becomes empty. It's as simple as that.

But not empty, no - that's too descriptive, that's giving the world _something._ Instead it's just _ordinary,_ which is far, far worse.

Life goes on; that's what happens when someone dies. But not goes on _as normal,_ because normal with Sherlock was never anything even akin to 'normality'. Instead it goes on _blankly,_ the way it did before. Possibly that is the most distressing thing; the _before._

John finds there aren't many ways to describe a 'lack' of something, no adequate descriptions of going without, living something secondary and bare. He doesn't want to resort to 'half life', because even that seems too much like a cop out, like he's at least surviving on fifty percent. 

When of course he's not.

On Sundays he gets up early and walks though the park, regimental style just to get himself out of bed. Keep moving, an officer once said to him when he was first stricken with grief for his father, so that's what he does now. Physical - keep moving, focus on getting from point A to point B. If we can do this, he tells himself, we can do anything.

He's not sure who the 'we' are, though.

Life becomes mundanity, washing clothes and buying food - forcing himself to do simple things like _exist._ He knows enough about madness to worry about hearing Sherlock's voice in his head, so shuts out anything and everything that sounds even vaguely Sherlockian. Before long he realises that this has reduced his thought processes to bare military, kicked back into survival mode and living on what passes for wits these days. Somehow his brain is existing in war mode, fighting it's own little conflict - maybe no one told it there's no one to fight with, anymore.

During the evenings there is an out of hours GP service that demands his attention, and John exists through the mewling babies and the spewing students. He isn't grateful for the distraction, and worries why it is he doesn't want it - why it is that part of him just wants to sit, mourning. He desperately wants to be inactive, but will not let himself.

There are others too, who will not let him be. Lestrade has taken to calling, almost four times a week, and Mrs Hudson refuses to let him be, especially when he wants it the most. They have all agreed not to talk about Him, but John suspects that rule doesn't apply when they're out of his company, like they're making concessions for his fragility. Part of him is glad about this; the other part wants to be furious, but doesn't have the capacity anymore.

It worries him that he's not _feeling._ But it doesn't fix anything. Worry never did.

In the kitchen he purposefully does not wish for Petri dishes or microscopes or long hands held out for phones. Instead he puts food in the microwave, counts the mouthfuls as he chews, resolutely keeps bringing his fork up to his mouth, determined. It's become his goal - his _resolution_ \- to just keep breathing. An odd ambition to have, he'll admit, and not one he ever thought he'd shoulder quite like this, but he's got it between his teeth now, won't let it go. He's not going to let living without Sherlock Holmes kill him.

He can't.

Just in case.

 

 

 

 

In the end it isn't an anniversary or a reminder that finally gets him (clever enough to anticipate these, keeps himself extra busy - see, Sherlock? Not as thick as you think. ...Thought.) - instead it's merely waking up.

John really hadn't expected to get blindsided by such a small thing. 

He opens his eyes one morning and just thinks - no. Not again. Please? Not again.

It's not a great wave, more like an erosion of rock. Living without him has always been less of a rapid burst of fire and more a war of attrition.

John pulls the duvet up around his head and thinks - numbly - of Afghanistan. Not of the stifling desert or the ping of sniper fire, but the looks on the faces of the Nationals he'd seen on patrols through the towns. It was detached like an archaic painting then, but now he remembers worn down eyes and features physically lined with endless war. It means something now.

For the briefest of seconds - the first time in months - John feels a sudden flare of something in his chest, of _emotion._ He wants to go back there, wants to say, "Yes, yes, I know how you feel."

This war, it's been going on too long.

He doesn't get up that day, or the next, or the next.

 

 

 

 

Mrs Hudson finally finds him, looking rough and unshaven and sorry for himself beneath a layer of duvet. She wrinkles her little nose, but John feels nothing at all.

"Don't you think it's time to get up, dear?" She asks, and he doesn't say what he wants to say. What he wants to say is no - no, never again.

What follows is probably some sort of worried intervention, but John sees and feels very little of it, sat on his sofa in the front room, being brought mugs of tea and magazines.

(Magazines! Sherlock would have picked them apart in moments, dropped them to the floor, pinned them to the wall and at shot them. But he tries not to think about what Sherlock would have done. Shakes it off.)

Lestrade also drops by, doesn't talk about cases because that would be painful - a _reminder,_ so though somehow John has managed to forget for a second and someone would insensitively _remind_ him, like he has the _luxury_ of forgetting in the first place - instead they chat about Lestrade's floundering comic opera of a marriage, which he enriches and embellishes for John's entertainment. Never mind the fact he is turning his own bad luck and misery into sport. Because this is what Sherlock leaving has reduced them to.

Then on the Thursday Mrs Hudson manages to lure him out of the house - the first time in... god, nearly two weeks. John turns up the collar of his coat against the wind, then realises what his fingers have just done, reminded by the rough scrape of the material. The action floods him, every part of his senses and he immediately flattens it back down again. Stinging at his eyes, he crosses the street two paces behind Mrs Hudson.

They get to the end of the road, to the entrance to the Tube just before the two side alleyways and then - 

Vatican.

On the wall, spray painted in a livid form of yellow that John would recognise anywhere. He frowns at it, been out of the world so long he's not sure it's not just some graffitied political message, but - 

Cameos.

On the wall of the alleyway a few paces down.

Suddenly, John's heart remembers it's working again, beats twice as fast as though to compensate. Overtime.

"Mrs Hudson - " he says, stark and strangled. His voice sounds odd, he hasn't used it in so long.

"Yes, dear?"

She stops, looks worried and John sees her for the first time in ages - really sees her. She's worried about him. She's worried and she's _still here._

"I'm - "

He wants to say something, but really, what could he say that wouldn't sound mad? Insane? 

He's frightened them enough, these good people. 

"Nothing," John eventually settles on. "Nothing."

And then he glances around him on the street, scanning faces in the crowd just in case.

And walks on.


End file.
